infamous slander, I should treat it with
scorn, if it did not seem to deserve some credit from a
reference to you. Prejudiced, as I know you are, I should be
sorry to suppose you capable of propagating such a sentiment,
or decline the opportunity of doing justice to my character,
and in some degree your own. And this for two reasons: first,
the gross falsehood of the insinuation; and, secondly, to
preserve a consistency in your own character, which must
suffer from your placing such confidence in me, with respect
to the military operations of that period, and permitting
General Washington to do the same, after such a conversation
as these queries suppose. I need make no apology, in this
case, for requesting an immediate answer,--and am, sir,

Your obedient humble servant,
JOSEPH REED.

_Market Street, Sept. 9, 1782._
Gen. Cadwalader.

SIR,--In answer to your letter, which I received last evening
by Mr. Ingersoll, relating to queries published in Mr.
Oswald's paper of last Saturday, signed Brutus, I can assure
you, (as I did Mr. Ingersoll,) that I am not the author of
that publication; nor have I published one single word, since
I came from Maryland, relating to the politics of this state;
yet my character has, unprovoked, been traduced by you, or
some of your friends. But, sir, I have repeatedly mentioned
the substance of those queries to individuals immediately
after the conversation alluded to happened; and since that
time in many mixed companies. As charges of the same nature
had some time since been made against you, to which you never
made a reply, the world very justly concluded they were true;
especially as the rank and character of the person who made
the charge (at that time) merited your notice. From this
circumstance, it occasioned an additional surprise, that you
should, in this instance, undertake to investigate the matter,
and declare in your letter to me, that the "insinuation" was
"a gross falsehood." I therefore now assert, that in a
conversation with you at the time and place mentioned in the
above publication, signed Brutus, that you expressed the
substance, and I think the very words, contained in the
queries. If my character for veracity wanted credit with the